Foward Through Time
by MagicalGirlMuse
Summary: Sailor Pluto keeps time. She guards it, knows it intimately, and can even manipulate it. But contrary to what many in the Moon Kingdom believe, she does not control it. It controls her as it controls seemingly everything in the physical world. There was once a time when Pluto was free of linear time but even as she watches loved ones fade she refuses to leave.
1. Prologue

I don't remember being young. I've been conscious for such a long time it's hard to even think about. And it's not as though I can't remember just because it's been so very long.

It's more like I don't remember not being. The moment it took between this place without me and this place with me was just that – a blink in time and space. There was no one to witness me before I could hold memories, if there was even such a time, and so there was no one to help me remember a childhood.

I do know that there was something before me. Stars and galaxies spanning across time itself appeared without my presence. Then, among the star-dusted manifestations, I was suddenly _there_.

And _there_ was nowhere in particular. Or rather, it was everywhere all at once while still only existing in one body. This physical body that was the anchor to my conscious thoughts and the thing that drove me to pull myself from the void that is everywhere and only exist where my body existed.

This body that didn't look like anything around me was the reason I searched for other bodies that were like my own. In my conscious mind I knew my purpose was to find these other bodies. They existed somewhere in the impossibly large vacuum of the space and time I ended up in.

Did I somehow get lost from them?

So I searched. And for the first time in my conscious thoughts I knew what time was. The knowledge that others were out there gave it to me. Such a sharp thing too – giving me such a sense of life and urgency that with each passing moment of being kept from these others became painful and frantic in my mind.

I didn't know loneliness until then either. Flinging myself throughout space without another thing to see and feel besides cold, hard stars consumed me and yet I didn't even know what it was. The feeling of loneliness was the only thing in my mind besides time yet I didn't know what it was.

How do you deal with such a thing when you don't even know what to call it?

No, I don't remember being young and I don't know what was before I was. I don't know for how long I explored space; time wasn't linear for me then. It only seemed to become so when I came home to the Moon Kingdom.

Yes, that I do remember. I remember finding you, Queen Serenity.


	2. Chapter 1

Just a quick intro into where I'm dropping this fan fiction into the Sailor Moon timeline. Pluto finds the Moon Kingdom at the height of its power – but also the height of its turmoil. Queen Serenity is a recent widow and has a young daughter with bright yellow hair and two buns just like her mother.

When Pluto starts existing as a singular, whole being on the moon the part of her that existed through space and time all at once is pushed from her and manifests as the Time Door. So essentially Pluto brought the Time Door with her and holds the key that opens it.

My story starts not long after Pluto has begun living in the Moon Kingdom. The Time Door has never been opened because Pluto holds the key but, as a door that is open to all times and corners of the universe, is there a force out there strong enough to force it open?

* * *

**Home**

The Scouts were training again while the Princess leaned over the outer fence watching, face drawn in admiration. Even standing a fair distance away I could hear her little noises of excitement every time one of the Scouts launched an attack at the rows of dummy soldiers lined up in various positions.

She seemed especially moved when the Scout from Mars conjured the bow and arrows, burning with bright red flames, and clapped when the girl hit her targets dead center.

My heart gave a small jolt when someone put a hand on the top of my head. "Your hair is almost as long as mine Puu," Queen Serenity said stepping up beside me.

I looked over at her and smiled despite the feeling of hesitation at her use of the nickname. Queen Serenity had been the first being with a body like mine that I had ever seen and when she had asked me who I was I could not answer. It wasn't for lack of understanding her speech – I heard her language through a thick veil as though I'd known it once – but because I didn't have a name.

In that moment I had been afraid. Did I really even exist here without a name? But Serenity had extended a hand to me then, her pale skin such a contrast to my dark brown, and had laughed shyly. "We should probably go find your name then," she had said.

With her hand draped around mine she had led me into her life at the Palace and encouraged me to find a name that felt right, one that I wanted, and it was in the Palace's library that I saw the charts of this solar system and the small, dark planet that stood almost like a sentry at the edge. Its name was Pluto.

"I can't sit on mine yet Queen Serenity," I said back to her. The ridiculous smile I had on my face wouldn't flatten out so I turned back to the training scene in front of me.

"Puu," she said taking her hand from my head. "I told you there's no need for formalities when we're alone."

The missing weight and warmth from her hand sent chills down my back and a memory of the cold, lifeless void of space ripped through my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a slow, quiet breath in thankful that Serenity was looking out toward the Scouts and not at me.

When I was sure that the feeling had passed I opened my eyes and stretched my arm out to indicate the arena in front of us. "But we're not alone."

I smiled and looked over at her but she was lost in thought, staring out at the girls training but not really seeing them. "I don't suppose we're ever alone," she said finally.

The memory of never-ending emptiness threatened to snake its way into my mind again. My spine started to go stiff with the frozen memory but Serenity turned toward me and once again put her hand on my head. This time she ran a hand through my hair and lifted a section that was covering the side of my face.

"Can I fashion your hair again?" she asked. There was a smile on her face now but no wrinkles graced the corners of her blue eyes. They were still filled with thoughts of something else. I could never blame her for being somewhere else when she was with me; the kingdom needed her to always be their leader no matter what she was doing or who she was with.

"As long as it's not dual buns," I said sitting down. Somehow the Queen and her daughter made the two spheres of hair look regal so the first time I agreed to have my hair put up I had foolishly asked for the same.

Afterward, when Queen Serenity had handed me a small mirror I almost choked on the sip of wine I had taken. Unlike Serenity's soft, fine hair that flowed in waves down from the buns my thick, coarse hair almost stuck out straight behind me in wide paddle-shaped swaths.

Fuzzy-headed and warm from the wine we had burst into a laughter that we couldn't control. Even when the General had knocked on Serenity's chamber door she couldn't stop giggling long enough to tell him to come in and report.

She laughed for a moment before moving behind me. "Of course not," she said.

Another excited noise came from the Princess as the Scout from Venus flung her chain at a target so fast I couldn't actually see the movement until it wrapped around the fake foe. Then, with one skilled yank, she ripped it clean out of the ground.

The girl was around the same age as the others and was shorter than the Scout from Jupiter but the way she carried herself seemed older and at times it was almost as if she stood taller than all of them.

"The Scout with the long yellow hair," I said as Serenity's ran her fingers through my hair, attempting to get the knots out. "She's the leader?"

Her hands stilled for a moment before she answered, "Sailor Venus was the first soldier to arrive after I sent the plea to all the planets within our system."

"Who was the last?"

A hand brushed past my face to gather the thick hair in front, hitting the heavy glass earrings Serenity had given to me only a few weeks after I had arrived. She'd had them made to match the color of my eyes, a deep red with scattered flecks of purple.

The difference between the cool earring and brush of warmth from Serenity's hand sent a jolt down my neck. It was quick like the lighting during eclipse storms but rippled down through my arm like moonlight does on water.

"Mars I believe," she said. Another hand swept up the hair on my left side and it suddenly seemed brighter, the hair that had shielded the sides of my face lifted. I couldn't help but smile then as the shorter pieces in the very front started falling free.

"What about Uranus and Neptune?"

"I never sent them requests," she said. I felt a pin slid against my head, heavy with hair but secure. Then she mumbled, through the pins that must have been in her mouth, "they're too volatile. They would surely send soldiers but they deal in outer-defenses, not usually interested in the inner workings of the galaxy."

One of the pins pinched the sensitive skin underneath all my hair. "Pluto is a part of the Outer Planets," I said. There was a smile on my face even though she couldn't see it, to make my words seem lighter, but the weight of loneliness in my own words pulled at the corners of my mouth.

"You are a part of the Moon Kingdom Puu." She must have finished my hair then because she put her head on my shoulder and leaned into my neck. "You may not have come from Pluto or even from this galaxy but I feel like you belong here."

It was in that moment when the terrifying abyss I had known for so long was the farthest away I'd ever felt. I looked at the Time Key on the ground next to us and placed my hand on the cool metal.

Could I not control the time that had slipped out of me when I became a singular being? It wouldn't take much energy to stop our forward progression and step outside of our flow through it.

All at once the emptiness that lurks at the edges of my being came crashing back over me and I had to squeeze my eyes shut against the dizziness that followed. I hadn't ever stopped anyone's movement through time before. The consequences for even a few moments could be irreversible no matter the outcome.

"Four soldiers just for the princess," I said to deflect the conversation and feelings it was evoking in me. I opened my eyes and looked at the girl, who was now sitting on the fence surrounding the arena, a huge smile on her face.

"Five," Serenity said in her ear. Her cool breath rustled the hair at the nape of my neck, which sent another jolt down my side. "Haven't you been training as well?"

I felt my face get a little warm and I smiled but deep within my chest something tightened and then seized, my breath almost catching with it. When the Sailor Scouts arrived months ago I had joined them. Curiosity had got the better of me.

Relations with Earth were becoming increasingly strained and I could see the toll that negotiations had on Queen Serenity every time she came to my chambers. She'd gotten into the habit of coming to my room when the negotiations finished at all hours of sleep and pace at the foot of my bed, going over her strategies and concerns. As a result I had gotten into the habit of waiting for her and having strategies of my own and answers for her worry.

It was during one of these sleep hours that she'd first told me about her plea for their allied planets to send one soldier each to help protect her daughter from the attack she knew would eventually come. She didn't know from where, but there had been an increasing number of assaults from faraway galaxies as well as the frayed ties with Earth.

"It's not just for the princess," Serenity finally said. Her hands dropped from my hair – the weight from my hair had shifted from the ends to a knot or bun I could feel on the top of my head.

Then Serenity draped a hand on each of my shoulders, pressing her fingers into my skin for a moment before releasing. The knotted thing in my chest unraveled.

"I want to protect you Serenity."

"I don't need protecting," she said. Her voice seemed farther away now and there was a sudden rush of cold air from the absence of her body behind me.

I turned to see her striding down the path that led away from the Palace and regret over my words took hold of me. It seemed the more I spoke my mind at Serenity's insistence, the more trouble became of it than good.

Plucking the Time Key from the dusted ground beneath me I stood and gave one last glance at the Princess who had abandoned the fence to talk with the four Sailor Soldiers. The Princess was talking with her hands and smiling so much that her mouth never really closed all the way – I could see that from here.

Sailor Mars was standing with the group but she was brushing her hair with closed eyes, a pinched look on her face. The Soldier from Mercury was laughing at whatever the Princess was saying, a hand on her cheek while Sailor Jupiter elbowed her in the side. The leader, Sailor Venus, looked as though she was trying to memorize everything the Princess said but whatever it was must have tested her tact because she kept glancing at the Scout from Mars, who didn't look up even once.

Then I started after Queen Serenity who, despite the quick pace she'd started out with, was not very far ahead on the path.

And she must have told the guards to stay behind and watch over the Princess because they didn't move or look at me when I walked past them. The two of us moved alone down the path with me matching the Queen's pace only a few steps behind.

It wasn't until she stopped at the edge of White Lake that I noticed she must have taken the pins out of her own hair.

...


	3. Chapter 2

Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out – I feel back into my old self-doubt routine and couldn't for the life of me write anything I liked. I also started a new job writing for different company's blogs so that's kept me busy. It's a little short but I wanted to get something out. Chapter 3 will be long to make up for it.

**BUT** enough with the excuses! On to Chapter 2! The darkness Pluto has been seeing lately behind Serenity's eyes poisons her words and leaves a mysterious warning about the fate of Serenity and the Kingdom.

* * *

**2**

"Protecting my daughter means protecting the future," Serenity said. Her voice was quiet as she stood on the edge of the lake. The way she stood so straight it looked painful.

The feeling of regret I'd carried down the path behind her distorted and morphed into a heavy, dark sadness. If given the chance to go backward through the linear veil of time I would have said it again. This realization stilled me so suddenly as I stepped up beside her and looked out across the expanse of white water.

Queen Serenity was a powerful light in my existence – it rivaled the sun's glare during its long stay, just as strong but not as harsh. It was the kind of light that I would follow if I ever got lost in the dark again.

"Your hair reminds me of stars forming," she said. "Dark emerald in the void of space but so vibrant when you shine light on it." Her body was turned fully toward me. I only turned my head toward her, catching her eye. Wrinkles formed at the corners of her eyes when she smiled this time.

"The Princess just calls it green."

A small laugh lit up her face then and left so quickly I would have stopped time regardless of the unknown consequences. It was so rare to see her laugh and smile like she meant it these days. I had noticed a darkness sitting behind her eyes lately, like it had crawled in during sleep and was bleeding over the soft light usually held there.

I had never asked about it. The pain I feel from seeing it lurking there is strong; but the fear of not knowing how to help is paralyzing.

"Forgive her. She has to try so hard to carry on now that her father is gone."

The memory of tears running down Serenity's face flashed in my head and the paralyzing feeling once again gripped my body. That long night had been the only time I'd ever seen the sparkling drops in her eyes; when she told me that her husband, the King, had passed shortly before I came to this planet.

Tears were for pain – although Serenity claimed they could be for joy – and I tried my hardest to keep hers at bay. The task seemed to be harder these days.

"She seems to be finding solace with the Sailor Soldiers," I ventured trying to put happy thoughts in her head.

"It's true," she said. "They've been taken with her as well, staying up through the Sleep Hours playing games and traversing through the halls."

I was surprised when, looking over, the Queen gave a small smile after she said this. "And you let her?" I questioned and let my surprise show through a small smile as well.

She nodded while smiling but then her eyes were clasped shut and a look of pain crossed her features. The smile was gone in an instant and I looked out toward the lake not sure if there was anything I could do for her. Was there ever going to be a day when I consoled Serenity enough to kill whatever darkness had crept inside her?

Some small piece of our connection had shifted and it was slight but devastating. The Queen no longer asked my advice about council issues or what she should do about issues regarding the people of the Moon Kingdom.

I couldn't let Serenity's light shy away from me anymore than it had. I couldn't bear to be shrouded in darkness once more.

"Pluto-" the Queen whispered.

The broken twinge at the edge of her voice brought my eyes to hers and as soon as I turned toward her she took both my hands in hers and stepped closer, looking up at me. She was taller than most of the other women in the palace but her face, when it was close to me, fit in the place at the base of my neck.

"Your powers have advanced further than the other soldiers in the same amount of time Pluto," she said. My mouth was still open but the pleading look spreading through her face was enough to still me completely.

"In just a short time you will be the most powerful soldier of that I am sure." Her hands squeezed mine then but I could feel them quaking. "I trust you more than anyone else."

I relaxed my hands in hers, "I'm glad."

Then all of a sudden her hands seemed to turn to stone like they hadn't just been quivering like a leaf in wind. "You will join the Sailor Soldiers in protecting my daughter and you will protect them as well."

My throat seized but I managed to speak. "I want to protect you Queen Ser-"

She threw my hands from hers and the darkness that usually sat quietly behind her eyes lit with anger. "My fate is tied with this Kingdom's and I don't need protecting. "Sailor Pluto," she snapped, hurt and authority puncturing every word, "you will not disobey me."


	4. Chapter 3

Serenity reveals something that shakes Pluto to her core – although she'd never let it show.

* * *

**3**

The silence chasing Serenities words rang sharply through my head and I flinched despite myself, closing my eyes for a fraction of a second. When I opened them I did not look at her but bowed my head in acknowledgment. The white, ragged sand under my feet glinted in the sunshine and the only thing I could hear in the silence was the slapping of water at the edge of the lake.

But it wasn't the soft, calming sound I longed to hear when sleep didn't come easily. It rushed and beat against my ears like the waterfalls that fell violently into the craters and canyons of this planet. I couldn't hear my own heartbeat.

"I haven't slept well lately," I heard her whisper. "and I must be frank as well as formal with you Sailor Pluto when I say that the dreams I've had are nothing short of disastrous."

She was twisting the wide ring around and around her thumb, hands clenched tightly together otherwise. "Nightmares?" I asked.

The Queen ripped her hands apart and put them at her sides, fists clenched. I had never seen such vicious energy take a hold of her before. She'd had bad dreams before and liked to discuss them with me whenever she got a free moment – making more complicated the subconscious' way of working things out while sleeping. I had never had a dream because I had never actually fallen asleep completely as the people of the Moon Kingdom did.

But it was clear that this nightmare had shaken her deep into her bones. I lifted a hand that I wanted to place around her clenched fist but my arm had barely twitched when she dropped her shoulders and relaxed her hands.

"I don't know what else to do Puu," she said then. With her head back and eyes closed I could study her face and noticed the faint smudges of plum-colored skin under her white eyelashes. "My home, the people that I love. I'm just standing alone beating as hard as I can against fate."

"I don't understand."

She looked up at me then and smiled. It was my very favorite kind of smile – mischievous and full of curiosity – but it was forced, stretched painfully over her features. Then she shook off her slippers and stepped a little ways into the gently lapping water.

As many times as I had walked past the lake on my way to the Time Door I'd never once thought to feel the water. Now, maybe fueled by Serenity's smile, however pained, I took off my own slippers and laid my weapon onto the sand.

I placed one foot into the white water and was surprised at the contrast. My dark brown toes showed through the water as clearly as if they were still on dry land. The water when you looked out at its expanse looked milky and thick but was as clear as clean, smooth glass. And it was warm and pooled around my foot as light as downy feathers.

Wriggling my toes I couldn't help but smile and put another foot in gather my dress in my hands so I didn't get the hem wet.

Serenity had done no such thing letting the light fabric float up and make a sort of halo around her ankles. My smile faded as I looked to the Queen and I stayed a few steps behind her waiting patiently for her to speak.

"As soon as I close my eyes I see it playing out as clearly as the tangible place we stand now," she said finally. "Nothing is fantastical or blurred at the edges, it's not a dream Puu."

"A premonition?"

She nodded ever so slightly but stopped short and looked at me. "A warning."

My body stilled and I felt empty suddenly like energy was rushing from me. "From who?"

"It was sent to me without a solution and I don't know if anything I do shall make a difference."

I could no longer feel the water around my feet the hand clenching my dress was starting to cramp from holding it so tightly. "What is it you see Serenity?"

"Fire," she whispered. "Annihilation. Nothing is left standing and no one is left alive." Her breath caught then and she placed a hand against her temple. I could the pulse in her neck clearly, the blue vein behind her ear jumping erratically. She took a breath and glared out at the lake, steeling herself in the way I'd seen her do countless times before.

But something was different, she didn't stand as steady and her shoulders slumped forward instead of pin-straight like she admonished the Princesses for not doing well.

"We've been at war before. Attacked by the forces of Earth so long ago. I was just a young child and didn't quite understand it at the time but an agreement was eventually made and although the tension took decades to subside we were an alliance."

I felt a pang of envy spark in my chest before dying out and robbing me of even more energy. "Your marriage to the King."

She nodded and took a deep breath. "Ever since his death tensions have flared again and I had decided before you came to me that the Princess would marry the young ruler from Earth."

My head snapped toward her but she wouldn't look at me. "When?"

"Well the Princess should meet him first." A small chuckle came from her but it sounded dry and brittle to me.

"My Queen she is a child," I said too quickly.

"She is certainly older than you Sailor Pluto."

Time, although it had been anything but linear until I'd come to the Moon Kingdom, was all I'd ever known. I couldn't count it or add it but I was knotted to it tightly. Maybe even more so since coming here. The void of space opened up within me and a burning wind came howling out.

"You could never know the eons I've spent wandering this Universe," I snapped. "The expanse of my lifetime is not something that you or anyone else here could even comprehend."

Serenity looked startled for a moment and then her brow creased with what I wasn't sure, my own eyes had gone blurry and my heart was beating slowly against its cage.

I had to bring myself back to solid ground before I fell too deep into the recesses of my endless memory. Willing myself to feel the water tickling my feet I dropped the bunched-up dress from my hand and concentrated on the sensation of the fabric tugging slightly as it soaked up the water.

"You think Earth is the one who will attack us?" I finally asked.

She had already been turned toward me but now she took a few steps and stopped in front of me. "I don't know for certain. The feeling I get from these visions in overflowing with darkness from the farthest, coldest corners of the Universe but-" her hands started to worry the ring once more. Around and around she twisted it looking down at it then toward the lake then back down.

"The faces of those who attack us are one's I've seen before. I soon as I wake and try to hold onto them they slip through my memory. Everything else I can remember expect for their faces."

"Does the Princess know?"

Her smile was rueful but genuine this time and her light blue eyes met mine, "I have a feeling she's not going to take the news well."

"Do you think?" I asked with a straight a face as I could which made her eyes sparkle with laughter.

It was gone just as quickly as it came.

"How do I protect my people? How do I protect you Puu?"

"That's my job Serenity," I said as she stepped into me leaning her head into her place on my collar. Her hands didn't go around me but instead she drew them into herself and placed her palms on my chest.

"You'll protect my daughter Puu?" she asked pushing away just enough to look into my face. "I don't think my fate is to survive what's coming."

All the guards she needed to be Queen had dropped from her face as she looked at me. The hard lines she drew when giving orders and ruling over an entire civilization softened and she looked directly at me with red-rimmed eyes. It wasn't a Queen's face looking back at me but the being that appeared to me the day I found a place to rest. A light I could call home shining out from a face so different but similar to my own.

Someone cleared their throat from a few feet away and Serenity's shoulders snapped back her chin lifting just a fraction as she turned.

Thames, her personal guard, was standing with his eyes watching the sand beneath his feet waiting to be allowed audience. Serenity looked at me one last time and that mischievous smile crossed her face for mere moments before stepping from my arms.

"Speak my dear Thames."

Only then did he look at her. "My Queen, the council is requesting your presence."

Her eyebrows shot up, "are they?" When he nodded she took a tone that was half serious and half mocking, "must be urgent then."

"I'll see you at dinner tonight my Queen," I said to try to ease her mind from the future she worried would soon be upon them.

* * *

Chapter 4 was going to be a part of this one but I wanted to post something because it's been forever because as you already know I'm very inconsistent. **Next time: **Pluto wanders to the Time Door after Serenity goes back to the palace. While she's there one of the Sailor Scouts shows up and Pluto gets to see just what the Princess Soldiers are made of.


	5. Chapter 4

* Hey all! So i really wanted to update because i haven't in forever so I'm going to submit a part 1 to this chapter because i already have this written and I want to post SOMETHING so... here you go! :) hope you like it.

Pluto wanders in thought to the time door. Venus shows up saying she needed to get away from her adviser Artemis for a while.

**4 - Part 1**

There were too many things bunched up in my chest – the unguarded way the Queen had looked up at me, the darkness bleeding behind her eyes. I didn't know what to make of the premonitions of hers. There was something in me that pushed against them as hard as I could.

They were nightmares was all. Troublesome and not uncommon with Serenity. I remembered a night only a short time after coming to the Moon Kingdom when I had seen the Queen walking along the edge of the Main Gardens in a kind of daze. Since I'd never slipped onto the other side of sleep I was almost always wandering through the halls.

Even though the customs had been made clear to me about how to act around the Queen I had approached her as cautiously as I could to see if there was anything I could do for her. That was the first and last time I'd seen her look so utterly frightened.

But I had just seen that look from her hadn't I?

All of the things inside my chest starting to tighten and I stopped walking to shut my eyes against the glare of the sun. The Time Door was only a few yards a head of me up the slope of the hill but I felt winded and light-headed. All of the sudden it was too hot and I felt beads of sweat form at the edge of my hairline.

It had to be just another nightmare. A world without Serenity was one without a light to find in darkness. A place of disorientation – void of even the slightest sense of sight or touch.

When I opened my eyes and took another few steps the Time Door suddenly was there in front of me as though I had willed it there with just my thoughts. I laughed at the notion but as I pictured it in my mind it became more clear and solid as I walked toward it.

Then I was standing in front of it with my Key, my weapon, poised in front of me as though I might threaten to break a taboo and unlock it at any moment. Time was a non-thing that even I didn't understand. Thoughts and inner workings of the mind were so untrustworthy and complicated that not even I could answer questions about time.

Which the Princess asked me plenty about.

Serenity never did – she was very weary of time and thought of it like a separate, thinking being. It could deceive and trick in her mind so whenever her daughter asked after it Serenity was quick to scold her and steer her in another direction.

I held a memory in my mind or a dream, if I could have them, about how time could be manipulated and how it could not. Although it had never communicated to me as a singular entity there were certain things that I felt in the deepest parts of my soul that no one else seemed to understand when I tried to tell them.

For someone who had taken me into the royal family as quickly as she did, Serenity didn't talk to me about time. The queen was the oldest being in the Moon Kingdom – her years stretching on as her duty to her people never ceased. So she would patiently listen when she caught me out in the halls during sleep hours, crying silently, as I tried my best to explain the crushing void that lingered on the edge of my being.

It meant something immeasurable to me that she would console me for hours on end when I knew it pained her to think of time. So centuries had passed in her lifetime that she couldn't remember half of it, the only memories came from history books. I imagine sometimes that Serenity had come into the world at the same moment I had – that we had traveled near each other in the same direction until finally meeting.

Of course, I knew the Queen had been born into the world the same as the rest of the beings in the kingdom, and had a mother and father. She'd even had a younger sister once, who had perished from old age centuries before.

The night she'd told me about her family was etched within the linear timeline of my new life and was the closest I'd seen Serenity come to giving up everything – hope, life, light, her people, her daughter.

It was on one of those nights that I'd been wandering through the courtyard, too restless to sit still anywhere, running my hands over broad leaves and fuzzy flowers. Except that night I had caught her instead, sitting on the edge of a fountain, leaning over the edge. Her hair was down and so long it trailed along the water in dizzying swirls, floating lightly and emitting a glow that seemed to come from within the very strands.

She'd been so engrossed in the small ripples on the surface of the water, made by her hair that I had stood next to her and watched as a single tear fell from her face, the water almost not disturbed by it at all. It wasn't until I'd leaned over the edge to look at my own reflection that her eyes focused to look at me.

I had expected her to be startled because she hadn't seemed to noticed me but the way her gaze slid to mine still made shivers go down my back. There was no light in them that night, it was almost as if she was still asleep, no recognition or movement came or went from them.

Then, possibly because I hoped she was asleep and I needed to wake her or maybe because of the panic that had boiled up into my chest at losing her, I had reached out and placed my hand on her cheek willing my fingers to bring her back to the moment.

The sharpest memory in my mind now is the warmth that had spread through my palm as she closed her eyes and leaned into my hand, brining up her own to place over it.


End file.
